I write this first as a Jew.

Then as a Jerusalemite.

And also as a Californian.

I was raised in a home where the idea of a Jewish homeland was not an abstraction but a living inheritance — something my family believed in deeply and proudly. The miracle of Israel was not theoretical. It was something we celebrated around the dinner table.

I was also raised proudly in the Democratic Party.

For most of my life, those identities were not in tension with one another. In fact, they felt deeply aligned. Liberal democracy, civil rights, human dignity, the belief that all people are created in the image of God — these were not competing values. They were part of the same moral universe.

I am also fiercely protective of my family — the Jewish people. Which is why I hesitate to even write this. But I also know that sometimes we have to have hard conversations before things fester and corrupt.

Love that refuses self-reflection is not love. It is denial.

And denial has never served the Jewish people well.

Our entire intellectual tradition is built on argument — on wrestling with God, with text, with each other. The pages of the Talmud are not neat columns of agreement but margins filled with dissent, counterarguments, and minority opinions preserved for eternity.

Not because disagreement weakens us.

Because it keeps us honest.

Because it keeps us alive.

Jewish tradition gives a name to this kind of disagreement: machloket l’shem shamayim — an argument for the sake of heaven. The Talmud praises the fierce debates between Hillel and Shammai, whose arguments endured precisely because they were rooted in the sincere pursuit of truth. In Jewish life, moral clarity has never come from silence, but from principled debate. It is one of the ways Jewish civilization has always refined its moral compass.

So when difficult questions arise about Israel — about power, governance, and the gap that sometimes opens between our ideals and our reality — silence does not protect us.

Which is why recent developments in American political discourse about Israel trouble me.

There is a good chance that Gavin Newsom could be a serious contender for president of the United States. His words matter.

And his recent statement invoking the word “apartheid” should worry anyone who cares about the future of Israel’s relationship with the United States.

To be clear: Gavin Newsom is not one of the loud activist voices shouting slogans about “globalized intifada” or colonialism every time a white person pulls up to Taco Bell. He represents something more consequential — the emerging center of the Democratic Party.

People I trust know him personally and speak well of him. That makes this moment more serious, not less.

Because what he is signaling is something larger than one comment.

First: that many established center-left Democrats are increasingly fed up with Israel’s current government.

And like it or not, the average person can’t hold much nuance these days. The government and its policies simply become “Israel” in the public imagination — even though many of us have protested those policies ourselves.

Second: that using language like “apartheid” is becoming politically advantageous within a party that was once reflexively supportive of Israel.

About ten years ago I predicted that the Democratic Party might eventually go the way of the Labour Party in the UK on Israel.

I wish I had been wrong.

But we would be naïve to pretend that the political ground beneath us has not shifted.

And this isn’t only a Democratic phenomenon.

We should also remember the old principle of horseshoe theory: the far left and the far right often end up meeting in the same place.

On one side are activists who see Israel as the ultimate symbol of colonialism.

On the other side are isolationists — or worse, outright antisemites — who see no reason for America to stand with Israel at all.

Whether it’s ideological hostility or simple geopolitical fatigue, the assumption that American support for Israel is automatic is no longer safe.

Israeli leaders know this.

And they also know that strategic decisions — including confrontation with Iran — are taking place within that narrowing window of international legitimacy.

There will come a time when America knows not Joseph.

So yes, some of what we are facing is beyond our control.

Antisemitism is real. It is ancient. It mutates and adapts to every era. The war against Hamas and Iran has given many people around the world an excuse to say things out loud that they were already inclined to believe.

But moral seriousness requires us to acknowledge something else as well.

There are things happening within Israeli society that are not helping.

The rise of extremist Jewish terrorism in the West Bank is not only morally wrong — it is strategically catastrophic.

Annexing territory without offering a clear and genuine path to citizenship will only deepen the perception that Israel is becoming the very thing its critics accuse it of being.

And when some of our leaders casually invoke biblical language about Amalek, or show little public grief for innocent civilians — especially children — killed in war, they are feeding blood libel narratives that have haunted Jews for centuries.

No, the  blood libel did not begin yesterday.

But we should not be careless with words or indifferent to suffering.

Jewish tradition has never asked us to choose between survival and morality.

The same Torah that speaks of defending ourselves also insists — over and over — that every human being is created b’tzelem Elohim, in the image of God.

And democratic principles are not foreign imports to Jewish life.

They are deeply compatible with it.

The idea that power must be accountable.

The belief that minorities deserve protection.

The conviction that human dignity matters even when it is inconvenient.

These principles should be held with the same reverence that we hold our religious traditions.

Not because the world demands it.

But because our own moral tradition does.

At the same time, none of this should be mistaken for doubt about our connection to this land.

Our bond with this place is older than any modern political movement.

Long before Zionism had a name, Jews prayed toward Jerusalem three times a day.

Long before there was a state, Jewish memory was rooted in these hills, these stones, this stubborn strip of earth between desert and sea.

That connection is not colonial.

It is civilizational.

And it will not disappear because a politician in California chooses a provocative word.

But if we want Israel to remain not just powerful but worthy — not just secure but admired — we must guard something even more fragile than our borders.

A new generation of Israeli soldiers — and the officers now rising into leadership — were shaped by the trauma of the Second Intifada and October 7 

When you grow up watching buses explode and friends murdered in their beds, it becomes very difficult to see your enemy’s humanity.

Trauma hardens people.

It narrows moral vision.

The same is true in our classrooms, where teachers struggling with fear and grief are shaping the minds of the next generation.

And yet Jewish history teaches something extraordinary.

We are a civilization built not on blind loyalty to power, but on argument.

Our prophets challenged kings not because they hated Israel, but because they loved it enough to demand that it live up to its ideals.

Our sages challenged one another.

Our tradition insists that even in times of war, even in moments of rage, ethics cannot simply be suspended.

I do not want Israel to become Sparta.

Admired for its strength, feared for its weapons, but cut off from the moral community of nations.

In order to be a light unto the nations, we actually have to remain among the nations.

The Spartans had terrible haircuts.

It wasn’t a good look.

Jewish history has never been the story of perfect governments or perfect leaders.

It is the story of a people constantly struggling to align power with conscience.

Sometimes we argue so loudly it seems like the entire country is one giant Talmudic debate.

But that argument — that restless moral conversation — is not a weakness.

It is one of the deepest strengths of Jewish civilization.

So yes, the political winds are shifting.

Yes, the world is becoming more hostile.

Yes, we are entering a dangerous and uncertain chapter.

But the future of Israel will not ultimately be decided by American governors or television commentators.

It will be decided  by whether we remember who we are.

A people rooted in this land.

A people shaped by trauma.

A people commanded — again and again — to pursue justice.

If we can hold onto that, then even in the middle of war and fear and global criticism, Israel can remain what it was always meant to be:

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)